My Respectable Life

by Alfred Roberts

Overview

On December 6, 1950, Alfred Roberts dutifully followed the advice of his primeval ancestors and entered the world. As he studied his mothers face and automatically attached the presumption of love to it, little Alfred was transported to his new home where he was placed in a bassinet in a room with his older sister. And so began Alfreds unique journey through life.

Alfred begins his memoir by detailing a childhood peppered with molestation experiences and normal obsessions with girls. As he entered adulthood, Alfred discloses how he secured a job, dated, and ultimately married despite an obvious lack of chemistry. After their first child was born, Alfred shares how his journey led him onto a ship for work where he found respect for his fellow seafarers, confronted philosophical questions, and became independent. But as Alfred discloses, it was only when he was faced with moral dilemmas and obstacles that he was finally able to learn the way of the real world.

My Respectable Life reveals the true story of one mans journey through life as he experienced the drama of the high seas and discovered that nothing is ever easy during a pursuit for happiness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504301961
Publisher:	Balboa Press AU
Publication date:	05/16/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	221 KB

About the Author

Alfred Roberts has three daughters and four grandchildren. When he is not writing, he is playing his guitar and recording songs for his YouTube channel. He spends the summer months penning stories in his beach shack near Forster, Australia. My Respectable Life is his first book.

Read an Excerpt

My Respectable Life

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By Alfred Roberts

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2016 Thomas Alfred Wardman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-0195-4

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CHAPTER 1

Creation

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6th December 1950, Newcastle NSW Australia

It was December 6th 1950, a very hot day, temperatures over 40 degrees centigrade, and my mother was in labour in the Waratah West Maternity Hospital, Newcastle Australia. The Nursing Sister was throwing buckets of water over her to keep her cool. I was inside her and my lifestyle had changed dramatically over the last couple of hours.

I had been happy and content, snug, warm and secure, listening to the vibrations of my mother's voice and the beat of her heart. I was created over the last nine months, built with the integral blocks of flesh and bone, a seamless and timeless perfection of the replication of my Mum and Dad's ancestral DNA code; at the same time imbedded from heaven to flesh, bone and brain, with an impression of a cosmic spirit later named Alfred who had lived in heaven and had chosen Mum's womb at this time to give me spirit. Nature had slowly turned on my brain like a light with a dimmer switch. For a few weeks during this gradual coming of awareness, I passed through a zone that could only be described as the horrors. Torment and fright filled each day as I drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes engaging outwards within the small confines of my environment as I listened to the steady pulse and murmuring vibrations of the giant in which I lived, only to, at other times, be dragged backwards into unconsciousness as I explored internally, my young mind, the pathways and caves and outlets with nothing in them yet, to finally "die" as I was rendered " asleep" at the end of a neurological pathway.

Now my greater self, Alfred, who lives in heaven, was created by two unknown lovers; they loved each other unconditionally and created the spirit Alfred in the cosmos. Every time two lovers come together, a spirit is created in the cosmos and then one day the spirit gains a name. One day, a long time from now, the body, which my mother has built for me, will cease to function, at which time I will return to my greater self in heaven with sights, sounds and memories from a four dimensional world of several decades.

I had no idea of the prior life of this female giant. Her life had been tough in a modern sort of way. Her first husband had run away with another woman and left her emotionally crippled, alone with a baby girl and no support. She worked hard and trusted no one, especially not men, until she was thirty six years old when an old flame, a soldier, returned home a hero and wanted to settle down.

So at thirty eight years old, I was conceived and I grew inside her; a lack of testosterone during this period would put a question mark over my gender for all my life.

Then on this very hot day ...

All the intelligentsia I had collected, a flood of chemical messengers surging through my brain washed my reasoning and contentment away. I became restless and excited and my mother was squashing me without care or empathy. What was this change? I didn't want it, why should I? I fought her but she was too strong for me, then I saw a blinding light, white and brilliant, hurting my eyes. "Follow the light," my primeval ancestors said to me and then I felt the freezing cold on my face, a tremendously loud sound in my head, deafening and painful as I heard my cry. A frightening new place with so much space, my mother took me in her arms and spoke to me, and from the signature vibrations I knew it was her. I studied her face and automatically attached the presumption of love to it and made demands. My disc was blank once again but my biosystem kicked into survival mode and so began the lifelong game of love and politics.

Shortly after I was transported to the end of the street in a 30s model Willys four cylinder light green panel van, that was blowing smoke and had no guts. At the end of the street stood the Waratah Town Hall, right next to the Silcock's pottery works. Was my old man the Mayor? No, he was not, a fact that I always omitted in later life when I went to school. We lived upstairs in what had once been a big ballroom with twenty foot ceilings. The room was divided into two bedrooms and a living area by two metre partitions. The windows were dirty with no blinds or curtains and the blackout from World War II remained in the corners of the glass. I was put in a bassinet in a room with my sister, eighteen months my elder.

1940 Middle East

Dad had spent a lot of time in Syria, Palestine and Jerusalem, not fighting but training, there were a lot of good times spent in the towns, drinking with his mates and no doubt chasing girls. While he was there, he became very good friends with two other men and the story goes that they made a pact, that when they returned to Australia and got married, whoever survived the war, the first one to have a boy would name him, Alf. I was first and that was how I gained the name Alfred. So in a spiritual sense, the perception of me was created in the Middle East. He brought back several souvenirs from Jerusalem that have been passed on to the great grandchildren. One of these souvenirs is a mysterious small box with a secret opening. Inside I have placed 6 rings of different sizes: each ring is engraved with a character that must suit the wearer. On the twenty first birthday anniversary, each grandchild will receive a ring to commemorate bravery, duty and sacrifice and the rein of good over evil.

1951

The Power of One

Maybe my life began ...

When I realized that I had two mothers or rather in this case, a Mother and a Daddy. I was most likely less than one year old and it occurred in the doorway of my bedroom. It wasn't rocket science; I simply realized at that moment that this second person's attitude towards me was nearly identical to Mother's. I realized that he wanted into my life and had been trying to engage me in a slightly different style to Mother, which I needed to forgive him for, for the time being, to see where this thing went. I could see that my Mother trusted him and I could detect no malice or danger in his voice or manner. Well, not only did I have the cognitive ability to realize all this stuff, I apparently thought it important enough to remember it for sixty years. My Father, of course got well and truly into my life and he was completely smitten by me and my natural charm drew him into a lifelong love-trap and at the same time I was caught by him, this friendly giant that I found I would do anything to please.

I knew many words but I couldn't talk, I was a master of love and politics but my parents were showing me limits. Even though I realized I was a separate entity, at times it was difficult to tell, as the ebb and flow of communication between me and my parents was seamless. Not so for the Foxhound bitch my Father owned, who I tried to engage on numerous occasions and got treated as though I was not there. I looked at the dogs, cats and the chooks, studied them, compared their intellect and dexterity to mine and came to the conclusion that in comparison to them I was a god. Of course at one, I didn't have the concept of God as a clear concept but came close to the idea when for months, I struggled to work out exactly what I was.

Or maybe my life really began ...

Later on, when my older sister became my third Mummy. I was indeed her baby without a doubt, she was there with me every minute of every day and night, and she taught me to walk, talk and to stay out of trouble. Her empathy was exceedingly strong towards me and she was more caring and kind towards me than either my Mother or Father who were by now forty years on Earth and in comparison, staunch, hard, somewhat distracted and left bewildered and subdued by World War II.

1954 Waratah NSW Australia

Or maybe my life began when I realized I could see over the dining room table. I was four by then, I was big, could run and jump, I was very clever and knew everything. One day when I was four years old, a journalist came to the Town Hall and asked Dad if I could feature on the front page of the Newcastle Morning Herald on the first day of spring addition and to appear there with a young lady in the garden of the Waratah Park. We walked hand in hand and he took photos. I've been an incurable romantic ever since and of course, a life-long celebrity.

1955 Waratah NSW Australia

Or did my life begin when I started school ...

I don't think so. It was an eye-opener for me. When my Mother took me there to start Kindergarten, (a Dutch word that means preschool) we lined up at the headmistress' office for our turn. Well, I could not get over the crybabies and screamers that were starting. It put the fear of God into me, but I had an older sister there, who was quite happy with it all and this reassured me. The cultural shock for me was that I learned that my Mother was an old hag, compared to the other beautiful Mums in their twenties and thirties. From that day on I hated it when Mum came to the school. I felt like saying to the other kids, "I really don't know her". I was five years old and many nights I struggled with my love and pride about this. At the end of my attempts to reason with it all, I'd get tears in my eyes and scold myself for being so heartless; I was five years old.

I was impressed with some of the teachers at Waratah Infants School, who were older and bigger than Mum. I thought Mum was a solid strong woman but she was a fairytale princess compared to some of these heart-breakers. You did what you were told.

My memories of Kindergarten were sitting around a circle with a crayon in one hand and a piece of paper in the other and taking turns at pissing our pants. I was only there a couple of weeks and moved onto transition. More paper and color pencils for a month or two, then into year one, the start of maths, science and English. By year one the playground had sorted itself out, the girls were down one end of the school and the boys the other. The boys had sorted themselves into two groups as far as I could see. One group of strong solid boys was led by a boy called Kenny. The other group was made up of all the other boys who were smaller and quieter. I belonged to neither group and no one partitioned me. I was head and shoulders above all of them and quite solid so I was left alone. I preferred it that way because I had no desire to wrestle and punch and kick my way through lunch with the bigger boys and even though I sometimes was enticed to play with the smaller kids, I soon got tired of their childish games.

One day a little boy named Darren came up to me and said "Alf, you are big, Kenny and his boys are continuously getting us, pummelling us," which was a few punches to the body, a headlock and being thrown to the ground. No real damage done but day after day was too much. "Can you get him for us?" He asked. I knew exactly what he was talking about as I had observed it over the weeks. "Ok," I answered and he disappeared and returned a few minutes later. "Meet Kenny down the back corner at the fence at lunchtime," he told me.

Exactly right at the fence, Kenny and I faced each other, Kenny with all his boys behind him and me with Darren behind me and the rest of the smaller boys from his group.

"What do you want?" Kenny asked me

"Why don't you leave these boys alone?" I asked.

"Who's going to make me?" was his reply.

I was unsure of what to do next when Darren, who was directly behind me, pressing against my body whispered to me "Punch him in the guts Alf!" I hit him with a good punch right in the stomach and he staggered back. He then took a long step towards me and bringing his hand forward and punched me right in the forehead. I staggered back, shook myself and then we proceeded to throw punches left, right and centre. A teacher called out and we broke it up. From then on the groups stayed apart and I had become policeman Alf. I was six or seven years old. Kenny lived at Waratah and was always around but we never became friends. At the age of fourteen he got a brain tumor and died, it was a sad time for the Waratah and Georgetown community and I'm sure he is still missed by all.

Or maybe my life began when I was eight ...

When a group of girls and boys and I were taken into a public toilet at Waratah by an eighteen year old man and shown what an erect penis looked like, how to masturbate (we took turns) and blow. That ugly bastard was a pest, always wanting to go into secluded places and have us pull him off. Anyway he did it to me a few times, his "I'll do you and then you do me." After a few months I felt dreadfully sickened and ashamed and the feeling of blowing (I don't think I had sperm at this age) had completely overtaken my waking thoughts: I enjoyed it so much. I realized pretty soon that I needed to rest for quite a few hours so I could have a good one. The downside of this new pleasure was that I had an enormous secret to hide and I felt ashamed of myself. I lost some respect for my Mother, who had seen the man and allowed me to go for walks with him. I was always tired, listless and inattentive and my learning ability diminished. At about this time my Father started to call me an idiot. I eventually told the man, whom I think still lives in Waratah, that if he came near me again I would tell my parents. That was the last I saw of him until I was twenty two years old. At least I think it was him, but after so many years I was unsure.

So, at eight years old I left mainstream juvenile society and blundered along with only half a brain to think with. I will undoubtedly remember some of the things that happened during this period but the sharpness and clarity will not be there. I don't know how this affected my normal maturity, but I felt a heavy burden until I reached the age of thirteen when I discovered that some of the more advanced boys also masturbated.

1963 Georgetown NSW Australia

When I was fourteen I met a runaway boy named Bernie, who was sixteen, and when we met at the shops in Georgetown he would come up to me and say "You have to answer me, what are you, a liar or a wanker?" I always answered "I am a liar", still hiding the fact. He asked me this on a few occasions until I guessed that he and the group knew anyway.

Bernie got a job at the abattoirs and in a few months bought a powerful motorbike that had two speeds - stop and flat out. One day he finished work early to attend a mate's funeral, who had also owned a powerful motorbike but had ridden it through a barbed wire fence. Bernie went to a café at Broadmeadow for a shake and then left to go home to change. As usual he took the back streets in Broadmeadow, a short cut with no cops. He rode through a stop sign at eighty to one hundred kilometres per hour as he always did, but on this day a ten tonne tipping truck chugged across the intersection. He never made his mate's funeral, but I am sure he slowed down the rest of the Georgetown group, who rode bikes, and may have saved a few lives.

So after five years in the badlands of child molestation, I reached thirteen years of age and felt I was back in mainstream society. If life was going to begin, it had to be now when the mating games began. The mating game was big and included girls, fashion and music, physical and mental strength and good genes from our parents if we were lucky. The hormones in our bodies changed our appearance and changed the way our minds perceived things. For me the sexiest thing about a bloke was his mind and the sexiest thing about a girl was her face. Faces had changed and the way I perceived them had changed. I liked all the girls in my group but a few more than others. I was wary of them however, even though their faces and personalities were the promise of a beautiful new world of joy and bliss and good times, I had been forewarned by my beautiful sister of the seriousness of the life and death passion, lying quietly beneath an inviting smile ...

1958 Waratah NSW Australia

When we lived at the Town Hall in 1958, we had a three-month-old puppy called Blacky. One weekend we came home from Lake Macquarie late and dropped our friends, "the twins", (twin girls my age) off at the end of the street. Little Blacky got out of the Ute and we could not catch him so decided to let him follow the Ute to the Town Hall a few metres away. He was hit by another car and critically injured. We took him to the outside laundry and put him in a box. He soon died, shaking the whole family. I thought we were all handling the event quite well with steely words like "He's only a dog", "We can get another one" and "Never mind it's all right" when my sister started crying, sobbing uncontrollably and soon reached the point of vomiting when my mother quickly ushered her away to put her straight to bed with a cup of tea and an aspro. This left Father and I standing there without much more to say, as now she had torn down our defences like they were soaking wet paper. We welled up, chock full to the brim with empathy and felt wrecked for a couple of days. Our dear little pup, we loved him so much. Me thinking: My poor sister. Him: My poor daughter. Ah? What mysterious power my little sister possessed. And me and Dad, what callous brutes we were. What were we thinking?

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from My Respectable Life by Alfred Roberts. Copyright © 2016 Thomas Alfred Wardman. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Chapter 1 Creation, 1,
Chapter 2 Teenage Days, 12,
Chapter 3 Marriage, 23,
Chapter 4 Learning The Ropes, 28,
Chapter 5 Mother's Approval, Not, 42,
Chapter 6 The Dream Job, 60,
Chapter 7 Risk Management, 84,
Chapter 8 A Restless Heart, 89,
Chapter 9 A Mid Life History, 128,
Chapter 10 A National Turf War, 156,